Young Justice: Tower of Babel
by Black' Victor Cachat
Summary: After their equivalent of the 'Tower of Babel' fiasco, the Justice League contacts the Team about Batman's eviction from the League. Post-season 2. One-shot.


For better or worse I do not own Young Justice…because Season 3 would never have been cancelled in the first place!

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Many thanks to Sunny Lighter for their help with this! Go check out their own work!

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Young Justice: Tower of Babel

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Curiously, the Team gathered at the Zeta platform's announcement of arriving members of the Justice League.

Despite being offered the use of the Watchtower, Kaldur, Artemis, M'gann, and Conner had decided that for their day-to-day operations they would continue to use the warehouse given to them by Nightwing, who was taking a leave of absence following the tragic loss of Wally in the arctic. They had substantially reinforced it of course, so that not even someone of Superboy or Blue Beetle's power could readily breach the walls. Personal accommodations of course had also received a significant amount of attention, especially following the episode involving Bart's first-and-last attempt to cook dinner and only two bathrooms being available for fourteen people…

Moreover, Dick and Wally had been successful in converting their friends into the belief that video games were essential to any home.

In return for this time and effort, the Team had established a comfortable yet secure base of operations whose location, unlike the Watchtower or Hall of Justice, was (supposedly) unknown to the Light. There were even serious discussions of building more around the world, including one in Atlantis where they would benefit from the protection the Kingdom's military and security services provided everyone there.

When the covert operatives had gathered, they were mildly curious at being greeted by the League's current leader, Black Canary, as well as Wonder Woman, Superman, and Aquaman.

"My King," Kaldur greeted them, "what brings you here?"

"Yeah, usually it's Batman who comes to see us," Robin III put in, with the older heroes visibly tensing at this.

"By a majority vote," Black Canary sighs before continuing, clearly aggravated, "Batman has been evicted from the League."

"And given the nature of the circumstances, we must now ask both you and Batgirl some serious questions," Wonder Woman sternly adds.

"What!?" Wonder Girl's voice breaks over the rest of the startled exclamations at this, although the original members of the Team do not make a sound or any reaction, quickly exchanging thoughts via M'gann's mind link.

Noting how the others were starting to quiet down, Kaldur stepped forward to take the lead. "Does this have any relevance with the strange news reports about the League the last few days, while we were occupied with our mission?" Tedious but essential work investigating how the Light would inevitably to make some form of advantage out of the imprisonment of Black Manta and the Brain, even though the latter was secured within Atlantis. Radio silence had been required for most of it while hiding from both the authorities and potential Light agents; and the League had never tried to contact them anyways.

"That is correct, Kaldur," Aquaman confirmed.

Clearly looking upset about this, but resolute in his decision, Superman explained. "While Batman was captive on Rimbor, and Nightwing was occupied with the alien threats, the Light infiltrated the Bat Cave and stole plans that Batman had created to defeat every known villain, hero, and anyone with metahuman powers, including League members. These plans were then turned against us. The only reason we weren't defeated was because one of Ra's al Ghul's minions stole these plans and tried to use them before his leaders could, either to win favour or launch a coup."

"That's the only reason we were able to overcome this threat without any losses," Black Canary elaborated. "It was abundantly clear that if someone more competent had been masterminding this, the League would have been overcome."

"While Batman's plans were intended to be nonlethal, the fact remains that the Light has gained even more damaging intel to use against us," Wonder Woman finished up, shooting her protégé's boyfriend a stern look, followed by Batgirl. "And that is why we must be sure that such practices are not being continued.

.

.

.

The Team continued to stare at their senior mentors and role models until Beast Boy raised a hesitant hand. "Wait, so you're saying we're _not_ supposed to be making secret contingency plans against each other? Because that's not what I was told."

While clearly surprised, Superman rallied himself. "Whatever Batman told you—"

"M'gann and I told him that," Conner flatly informed his 'brother,' his once-again girlfriend frowning slightly as she nodded in agreement. "That was one of the first private lessons we gave him too."

"Bart and I are supposed to be working on that some more this evening," Artemis nonchalantly added. "He's actually doing pretty well at it."

"And I made a point of requesting Nightwing to tutor Lagoon Boy on this shortly after my false defection," Kaldur threw in. The rest of the Team were murmuring confirmations, throwing in little details on their own lessons on this subject. Clearly they had all believed every hero had long been aware of this little detail.

The League was stunned.

"But why would you do that!?" Superman cried out.

"Are you kidding!?" Conner scathingly puts in, a glimmer of his old temper breaking through. "I wasn't even six months old before we had to take down the whole League when you were all brainwashed by the Light! We were forced to make up plans to take you down without seriously hurting you on the fly!"

"If anything it's a sign of how much we care about our friends!" M'gann snaps. "Otherwise we might find ourselves fighting them, and while improvising on the fly we could kill them! Or leave them to have to cope with killing us if we fail to save them! That's why there's so much emphasis on not killing them!" After saving Kaldur and his mind, M'gann had pooled what spare time she had when not with Conner or Gar into new plans that would respect this philosophy more.

"We live in a world where the Light and its allies have put significant emphasis on mind control," Kaldur calmly and diplomatically reminds the League. "In many respects, we have been fortunate that only Red Arrow and Blue Beetle have been turned into unwilling agents against us, and even that is likely in thanks to work of the League and friendly scientists devising countermeasures."

Wonder Girl meekly caught Wonder Woman's attention. "Batgirl started helping me with this while you were on Rimbor," who was clearly unrepentant, "and it really seems important. The only difficult is that I've got to come up with plans, aside from just punching them," she added slightly embarrassed for some reason, "that she herself doesn't know the details of, despite how she was mentoring me."

"Were Zatana and Rocket even present for this vote?" M'gann asked with genuine curiosity. "Or did you overlook them because they were on personal leave?" Rocket with her marriage, and Zatanna off on her pre-scheduled League mandatory vacation to help deal with the stress everyone picked up on this job.

Superman's hesitation was answer enough.

Rubbing her forehead, Artemis spelled it out for the League. "You guys don't seem to get that we're a covert ops group. We can go around punching the bad guys as good as the rest of you, but we're not the same. We're not here to be an inspiration for the rest of the world, we work best with deception and guerrilla tactics."

"Or sneaking our heavies in behind enemy lines to destroy them from within," Conner adds. "But even then we rely on lying, planning, and sneaking around."

"And that's not going to change," M'gann says.

"Our apologies, but that is indeed the way it is," Kaldur finishes. "If the League disagrees with this," their leader pauses, but then continues. Because it is necessary. "If the League disagrees with this, we _are_ willing to go our own, separate path."

Although during the continued telepathic discussion that they had been having, neither he nor Conner, M'gann, and Artemis believe that the League will allow themselves to lose direct access to the Team. For all that some of their group would choose to remain with their mentors, the Black Ops version of the heroes had proven themselves too valuable, even if individuals like Superman had blinded themselves to just how much their former sidekicks have learnt from the Light; including the value of asymmetrical warfare when dealing with all of the threats in this universe.

Threats that are dangerous enough for them to be 100% serious about leaving if their 'bluff' is called.

They would not go to Batman for funding of course, not when they could just steal it from Luthor. Or ask Nightwing to support them. He would probably do it just to troll the all-knowing League.

Before Superman can open his mouth again, Black Canary puts her hand on his shoulder to silence him. "We'll get back to you," she says, but the gleam in her eye as she leads her teammates back to the Zeta Tube makes Conner, her own main student, suspect that this outcome had always been her intention ever since Batman had lost the vote.

Silence falls again, but then the senior members of the Team are barking orders to get their juniors back to whatever they were doing.

"Some days you've got to wonder," Conner grumbled once the leading operatives had been left alone.

"Honestly, given how upset you were over Nightwing keeping secrets," Artemis said, "I'm a bit surprised about how angry you are at their attitude."

Conner gave her a mild glare. "I don't like it, but this is to deal with mind control, which is even worse than keeping secrets. So long as everybody respects that it's to _save_ one another, I'm fine with it. And no question, Batman still messed up big time if he thought it was a smart idea to leave that lying around somewhere."

They all grimaced at that, disappointed in their joint mentor. He had the Troll Hacker for an adopted son for crying out loud! The one who loved to sniff out secrets.

"Think it's time he had he had his own mandatory vacation," M'gann scowls.

"We will leave that to Dick and the rest of his family, while we focus on our own duties," Kaldur offers to placate them from doing anything rash.

"I feel like going and upgrading our own security again," Artemis decides. "And interrogating all of the others to make sure they're not leaving their plans or special weapons lying around for people who specialize in theft and infiltration to steal. Extra training if they do!"

"If they do kick us out of the League," Kaldur smiled, "after his holiday, we could always hire Batman to be our new combat drill instructor!"

Their laughter at this joke sent chills down the rest of the Team as they redoubled their efforts, wondering what those four were planning…

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 **Author Notes:**

 **Something that has been bouncing in my head after reading fics that pointed out how prevalent a threat the various forms of mind control were for the League, making Batman's treatment seem more unreasonable. That his plans were so readily stolen were a concern however. Anyways, that got me thinking about how the Team would react given their own experiences with messing with people's brains.**

 **And yes, Conner dislikes secrets, like with what Nightwing did in season 2, but this falls under necessary evil to help save those he cares for (and he HATES mind control), and this time M'gann has not been abducted.**

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 **Please review, and I will get back to you!**


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